WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed Monday to hear a bid by South Carolina Republicans to restore a congressional district that a lower court ruled was gerrymandering.

Republicans led by South Carolina Senate Chairman Thomas Alexander are challenging a January ruling that said one of the state’s seven newly drawn districts was set to dilute the power of black voters.

The district in question covers Charleston County, including the city of Charleston, and is currently held by Rep. Nancy Mace, a Republican.

After the 2020 census, Republicans redrew the lines to strengthen Republican control of what had become a competitive district.

It was won by Democrat Joe Cunningham in 2018 before narrowly losing to Mace in 2020. The new map was used in the 2022 midterm elections, in which Mace won by a larger margin than he had two years earlier.

Lawyers for the Republican lawmakers said in court documents that the three-judge panel should have acted on the presumption that the Legislature was acting in good faith. They also said there were obvious political reasons lawmakers wanted to push predominantly Democratic voters out of the district to cement a Republican majority.

Civil rights groups, including the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, alleged that Republicans targeted black voters, moving nearly 30,000 black voters from one district to another.

“Such predominant reliance on race is impermissible even if the mapmakers used race as a proxy for politics,” the lawyers wrote in court documents. They argue that the new map violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.

The Supreme Court is currently considering a separate case related to racial gerrymandering in the South, this time over Republican-choice constituencies in Alabama. The case could lead to a ruling that further weakens the landmark Voting Rights Act.

Leah Aden, an attorney for the group, said Monday that the district was a «blatant example of unconstitutional racial gerrymandering and intentional vote dilution.»

Mace said last week that he «knows nothing» about the battle for his district, except that it makes his job more difficult because there is uncertainty about who he will represent.

“I will serve whomever the courts or the state decide we are serving,” he added.